Allen Vince

Who was Allen Vince?

Allen Vince was one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred.

Allen Vince and his brothers, William, Robert, and Richard Vince originally came from Georgia, United States. Vince was a widower whose two sons did not come with him to Texas. He was living in the San Jacinto River area in 1822 and was listed in the census of 1826 as being between twenty-five and forty years of age. His sister Susan Vince kept house for the family.

Allen Vince was a partner of Mosis A. Callahan when they received title to a sitio of land in what is now Harris County, Texas on August 3, 1824. On April 30, 1831, Vince received an additional half league in eastern Grimes County, Texas and Montgomery County, Texas, and in 1838 he received a labor of land in Harris County, Texas.

The brothers gave their name to Vince's Bayou, famous for Vince's Bridge at the time of the Battle of San Jacinto. Though Vince did not personally participate in the battle, Antonio López de Santa Anna who fled the battlefield on his black stallion, was captured when he could not cross the burned bridge.

In 1838 Sally Vince, a black woman, filed suit against Vince, charging him with holding her, a free black, in slavery.